With Force and Fire
by The Shaded Rose
Summary: If the world would shape before her, let it be with force and fire: a drabble series exploring the life and thoughts of mage, Agatha Hawke. Both original and canon scenes are included. Rated T for occasional violence and swearing. F!HawkeXAnders (I do not own Dragon Age)
1. Insanities

Insanities

She dropped the knife at his feet and felt the clank of steel on stone run through her as though it were cannon fire. She imagined that he gaped up at her, wide-eyed and in shock of her mercy, but she dared not meet those bold, amber eyes of his, like puppet strings on her heart. She always detested hypocrisy, and here she stood sparing this man for the exact crime that she condemned so many others for. She felt like filth, but. . .

Agatha Hawke was ready to end the life of her lover. He'd turned from a rebel of justice to a tormented terrorist: a murderer. He brought the wrath of ignorant, fearful subjugators down on mages everywhere after swearing to protect them—after swearing to protect her—and, before this accursed night, she had no mercy to spare for his kind. But as she anticipated her kill as she always did, with visions of tasty violence summoned by a natural bloodlust, Agatha didn't feel that sweet, familiar surge of adrenaline; she felt a gut-wrenching sickness that seared her very bones and trembled her steady hand.

She could not meet Anders's gaze, or anyone's. She could not let them know the tears that welled in her honey eyes, betraying her shame, her rage, and her love, all at once. Agatha would not allow Anders's crimes to go without consequence, but she _could _not be responsible for the death of someone precious to her—not again. Anders was more than precious. It had been that way for years. Agatha faltered under Anders's gaze, melted at his touch, crumbled to his will. Nothing thrilled or terrified her more than he did, and she'd never let him know of the fevers he inflicted on her, not their full extent.

However, Agatha was convinced that Anders knew; he must have. How else could every one of his wry grins warm her blood and rest her soul? Why else would he allow her to see him exhausted and weary-eyed from healing desperate refugees for just that purpose? How else could he have managed to make every second spent with him an aching bliss?

"Hawke?"

She shivered at his breathy call, one octave from cracking. Agatha tore herself from her bitter reflection to look the love of her life in the eye, if only for an instant. He had tears of his own glistening over the fiery brown of his orbs, not quite ready to leave them. His lips were parted to match the stretch of his eyes. He did not know of the insanities he'd driven her to. The pale of his skin reassured her the best: he expected her to kill him. Agatha wasn't sure if that hurt worse, or the fact that she didn't.


	2. Daughters

A/N: This chapter is set sometime before the HawkeXAnders romance was consummated. I wish my Hawke could have made this point in the actual game, so I brought it to life here. Ah, the magic of internet

Daughters

"Well, don't hesitate! You want to be a better mage, don't you?" His voice rang from behind her as she stood frozen before a circle of candles on the ground. Its glow tightened her fresh, nine-year-old skin, and she felt a tugging somewhere deeper than her body. It frightened her, but she would never admit it.

"Yes," she piped, "but. . . Thetias, father said that Bethany and I had to stay away from the Fade."

"My dear," the man called Thetias approached and rested his pale, boney fingers on her shoulders. "What your father doesn't understand is that you are not like your sister! You can be one of the greatest mages in all of Thedas!" He shook her slightly, and she startled. "All you have to do is meet my friend and follow all of her instructions." He leaned in and whispered, "Agatha, you can do this. Let us help you."

Thetias took a few steps back. Young Agatha didn't see the grin stretch across his face as she stepped into the dancing ring of pyre.

She remembered feeling every color, and sound she knew merge into her and burst into indescribable flames. Then it all abandoned her to take shape once more, and she was left feeling warm, and sluggish, and thoughtless. She'd play in this endless meadow, anyway. It felt like the right thing to do.

Agatha chased after butterflies, and rainbow petals rose at her feet. As she closed in on a Thedas Monarch, something very distant and very near told her to stop, so she froze.

"You're bored here, aren't you?"

Agatha turned to see a naked woman with a gentle smile and swirling horns. "That raw power in you," she continued, "it's restless without release, isn't it, love?"

The naked woman, Agatha noticed only three things of her: her voice had a duel tone, like two soft hands caressing the depths of Agatha's ears; her fire, the purple one atop her head, whispered of treasure and joy; and her truth, that an unnamed energy speeded through Agatha's veins and begged for outlet, was undeniable. Agatha was disgusted with her happy meadow, and she wanted nothing more than to heed the plea of her magic.

"I don't know you," Agatha tested, "how do you know about me?"

The drifting woman laughed a tinkling giggle that reminded Agatha of her mother's treasured wind chimes. "So serious," she grinned. "Do not fear me, child. I'm only here to give you what you desire! Your _good_ friend, Thetias, told you of me. Do you not remember?"

Agatha did remember. She remembered meeting a kindly mage when she, and her siblings, roamed a bit too far from Lothering. He was old and full of secrets that he wanted only to share with her, but it was to be a secret.

"He told me to do as you said," said the little Hawke, lowering her guard, "and that you would make me a better mage."

"He did," sang the woman. She floated her pale, nude form before the child and outstretched her clawed hand. "Just take my hand, and I will give you power."

Agatha did hesitate, but the woman's gentle, distorted face scared and comforted her. She took two steps forward, and she raised her hand. Suddenly, she felt little pieces of her thoughts ebbing away, like evaporating water—

And, then, a crash.

"Get your filthy hands away from her, demon!"

Agatha nearly leapt from her ethereal skin at that booming voice, like a lion's echoing roar. She turned, and the meadow melted into a brown, shimmering fog. All Agatha could see now was a man with dark skin, like her own, glowing with the blue mist of spirit magic and gnashing his teeth. He brimmed with a darkness that terrified her, and yet, Agatha knew that she was in no danger of him.

"F-father?"

The word spilled mindlessly from her lips; it took Agatha a few moments to remember what it truly meant—and all at once, she remembered her home, her family, and realized that she was in grave trouble.

"Back away, churl," growled the naked demon whose bizarre aura of beauty shattered into quiet malice, "this vessel is mine, now." Her claws extended, the desire demon lunged toward a squealing, ducking Agatha only to taste lightning. She hollered and convulsed, her dueled shrieking betraying her true nature.

With a sweep of his left arm, Raymond Hawke yanked his daughter behind him; with a sweep of his staff arm, he crushed a burst of blue force into the demon's chest. She reeled, and he dashed to meet her as she hit the ground.

In the time it took the demon to lift her head, Raymond towered over her, as well as a dozen spikes of ice. "Wait!" she squealed. "We-we can make a deal!" Raymond raised his mighty hand above his head. "Deal with this." The ice went piercing down.

Agatha felt the colors and sounds swirl into her again, and all she could bring herself to do was lay down on the mist. She saw her father running to her. The battle-readiness melted into panic with each step he took until, finally, the world went to black.

She awoke, and she could open her eyes, but she couldn't stand. She smelled the steely rank of fresh blood and saw it puddle around her line of vision. Across from her lied the battered corpse of an old man whom she quickly recognized as Thetias. Memory came rushing back along with searing pain.

"Father," she croaked. It wasn't until now that she felt cold, hard stone pressuring her back and a tingling warmth spreading across her front and the side of her face.

"Hush," cooed that magnificent, unmistakable voice, "don't speak. You'll make it worse." Her father's hands hovered over the corner of her eye; the sting on her face started to recede. "A bloodmage. . . I can't believe this."

She'd been wrong; she saw it on his face. He didn't mean to make her feel his disappointment, but she heard it in every syllable. "How could you be so—"

"Foolish?!"

As the question spat from Anders's mouth, she relived that entire near worse-than-death experience after keeping it locked away for so long. She was there again, broken and bloody for her own carelessness faced up, head turned, body screaming. Only this time, it wasn't her father kneeled over her in a panic trying to restore her; it was Anders, and her father's exact words poured over his lips.

"They were slavers, _Anders_," she gritted out, "like the hundred other slavers that I've killed before. I wasn't expecting an ambush!"

"But were you expecting them to be civil?!" Anders snapped back. "Why would you face them alone?!" Hawke's nature demanded that she retort somehow, but a heaving cough ate her words. The frantic healer steadied her and gently pressed her down. "Don't speak!" he said. "I'm sorry."

Agatha had killed bands of slavers single handed before. She realized that perhaps she'd grown over confident, but he didn't have to harp on it! Her father was a fuss bucket too. . .

At this remembrance, the similarity of today's embarrassment and her first encounter with a bloodmage, the similarity of Anders's rescue and her father's, finally hit her. She'd been paralyzed, over-powered by a bloodmage, and nearly bled out. Just as her would-be killer plunged a knife into his hand, Justice plunged a spirit bolt into his heart. Agatha laid limp on the ground, finally free from the blood magic, as Anders slaughtered the remaining slavers, completely out of control of himself. When it was over, she was surrounded by blood and healing magic. This wasn't the only time he'd reminded her of her father, she realized. Anders's conviction, his compassion, his sense of humor when he'd reveal it, they all resembled that of her father.

Even now, as Agatha watched his face, bitterly crossed between focused and frenzied; as his strong hands raced the full scope of her body in a frantic search for wounds; as sweat beaded at the crease in his forehead and trickled down his crinkled nose; as he glared back and forth between her form and the corpses of those who harmed it, Agatha couldn't help but remember her father. She found herself stuck between dumbstruck by Anders's perfect reenactment and. . . . enticed by it. Had she known a greater man than her father? Before Anders, had she known anyone to even come close? Agatha felt foolish and hormonal to think this way, but something about this whole scene seemed to suit Anders's features sinfully well.

"You're like my father." The statement escaped her before she knew it was coming.

"What?"

Anders moved up to her bruised ribs, and she could feel him working at her inner bleeding. Finally, it hurt less to breathe. She began to relax now. He was such a skilled healer. "My father, you remind me of him. You're almost exactly alike." She half-wanted to kick herself for talking like this, but she felt a bit too worn out for self-restraint. Her assertion was met with a breathy chuckle.

"Oh, so your father was host to a vengeful spirit too, then? It's more popular that I'd imagined."

It never failed to pain her when he spoke that way, as if he believed that Justice consumed him. He'd be the first to become defensive when someone _else_ refused to see the man past the spirit, and then, he'd insult himself in the same way when he was alone or with her. A frown darkened the corners of her mouth.

"That again?" she sighed. "There's more to you than Justice, Anders."

A faint smile graced his lips: the one that normally did when she said such things—the one that told her that she was sweet but mistaken. She loved and hated those. He deserved to know how wonderful he was with, or without Justice.

Agatha took the hand closest to hers, ignoring the bewilderment on Anders's face, and held it above her face. She traced its slightly calloused lines with her fingers; swirls of green left his hand to envelop hers.

"Justice settles scores," she began as nonchalantly as she could. She was trying her hardest to avoid his gaze for fear of blushing. She hated blushing. "but it doesn't heal."

Anders's healing hands have saved countless lives, including Agatha's. Justice may have killed the breakers, but it was Anders who helped the broken. Agatha would permit no 'vengeful spirit' to steal credit for that. She turned to face him.

"Anders heals."

Anders stared at her, frozen, with blazing eyes and a look that rang broken and beautiful. Heat rose to her cheeks, like she knew it would; she needed to look away. "You of all people should know this," she finished. His hand left hers to stroke her cheek. She almost let herself drift away.

"I'm truly blessed, then," he smiled barely above a whisper, "that you're here to remind me."

Finally, the pain was all but gone, and Agatha savored the last few minutes before she would have to stand. Thoughtlessly, she whispered under Anders's stroking hand, "My father healed."

Agatha despised mush and over-sentimentality. She would never understand why this man, so alike and unlike her father, managed to bring them out in her, but there's an old saying about daughters.


	3. Change

A/N: This chapter came to me when I was exploring the Hawke estate again XD. Enjoy the fluffiness.

P.S. I just edited the chapter. I only found three more errors, but you know.

Change

She awoke, and her glossy, sleep-stung eyes trailed to the opposite end of the bed: cold and without even the slightest ruffle. A pang of anxiety jolted through her chest. Anders hadn't stayed out this late, had he? She lifted her head and scanned the room's back, right corner. His feathered pauldrons that he always hung at night were nowhere to be seen. Agatha pushed herself from the bed. She was no one's mother, and she was aware that her healer could take care of himself, but he rarely ventured about in the wee hours, and as the premarital, live-in lover of a noble apostate, he wasn't very inconspicuous to the Kirkwall templars—or anyone. The people had little to do than nose around in the affairs of the returned Amells, it seemed.

Agatha sped gracelessly across the room to fetch her house robe, nearly tripping on her mabari, Spartan, along the way. She yanked the silk coat from its wall hook, and as she threw it over her shoulders, she felt the slightest prick tormenting the space between her shoulder blades. After wrestling with herself for a good, few minutes, Agatha finally pulled a pesky slip of half-crumpled paper from her robe. Upon its unraveling, she found that most of its contents were swallowed in an ink spill save for one half-sentence written in haphazard cursive:

'_Andraste suffered at the hands of magisters, thus, she feared the influence of magic, but if the Maker blamed magic for the actions of the magisters in the Black Ci. . . .'_

"Anders's blasted manifesto?!"Agatha tossed the paper aside and rolled her eyes. "I swear, I am going to wake up and find this thing in my _mouth_ one day!" As she watched the parchment drift to land at the front leg of her journal desk, a sudden realization crept in. Agatha knew _exactly_ where Anders was.

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The candle's flame was all but at the stump, clinging zealously to the last life of its dance and offering just enough light to expose the source of the faint snoring that echoed off of the walls. Anders lied fast asleep at the desk in the bookroom, just as Agatha expected he would be. A stained quill limped from the same hand that cushioned his restless head. Golden strands of hair spread in a messy canopy over his eyes and ears, let loose of its usual ponytail. The sight was endearing . . . and unsettling.

Anders ran himself ragged over the templars and the Circle. Agatha shared in his sentiments, in his outrage, but he never took time out to rest. The hatred in him was relentless; it didn't want him to sleep, and _that_ was dangerous. She stepped up to his back.

"Anders," she called, nudging his shoulder. He woke with a start, and scanned the room before facing her with squinted eyes and flushed, sleep-printed cheeks. "You look a hot mess."

"What is it, Hawke?" The irritation in his voice barely shanked through the sigh over it.

"It's late, Anders," she declared gently, "and you've obviously worn yourself out. Come to bed." Agatha crossed her arms; she already knew what was coming.

"I'll be up there in a moment." He turned his back to her and began to recollect his ink and parchments. "If I could just find the right words—

Agatha placed a hand over his as it grasped for a fresh candle. He was freezing. "Words will come when you're not dead to the world and drooling on my desk. You won't accomplish anything by exhausting yourself like this."

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She nestled herself under his arm and played second blanket to his chest, and when he tucked a kiss in her braids, she shut her eyes.

"How do you think we would have been, you know, if we were born in a world were mages were free?"

Agatha sighed. "You're determined to keep me awake, aren't you?" She refused to open her eyes again, but she felt a sigh of his own tease her scalp after a moments pause.

"You don't have to answer, but . . . have you really never wondered?"

She hadn't. Agatha never really thought of herself in any way, shape, or form that hasn't already been. The occurrence rang a bit strange to her, but she was never the sort to dwell on such frivolous things, until a certain idealist showed up and reminded her of dreams and futures—the world around her, instead of the world before her.

She strained to see him in the darkness. He looked down and to his left, like he always did when lost in his thoughts. She couldn't see it now, but she imagined his eyes glowered in that severe, sexy way they did whenever someone was wronged, whenever someone was downtrodden.

"You'd still be a trouble maker," Agatha finally said, a smile creasing the corners of her mouth. She could make out an arch in Anders's right eyebrow as he looked down at her.

"A trouble maker?" he asked incredulous.

"If mages were free," Agatha began with a huff, "you would just find some other underdogs to fight for: the elves, the poor, the sick—

"The kittens?" Anders chimed wryly. Agatha scoffed lovingly and pinched his side. He gripped her hand with lightning speed, and she was relieved to feel its newfound warmth. "You would say something like that," she teased.

"The plight of cats against canine tyranny in this world is _heartbreaking_—especially in Ferelden," Anders quipped, winning a chuckle from his love. "I'm surprised that _you_ haven't joined the fight."

"In that case," Agatha grunted, lifting herself onto her elbow, "you'd have a deadly, feline companion, fighting alongside you, claws and all, as you travel the world healing the helpless and making puppies cry. That sound about right?"

"That sounds perfect. I think you've been hanging around Varric a bit too long," Anders laughed.

"Honestly," she began, subconsciously weaving her fingers through the ones that still gripped them, "crime-fighting kittens, or no, there will always be self-centered arses trying to get over on the innocent, and as long as that's true, there will always be a stubborn blonde to take up staff and beat some sense into them."

He brought his forehead to hers, and there was no darkness deep enough to dim his glorious smile. Agatha felt as though she'd been awarded a fortune. "I suppose you're right," he chuckled, "but what about you? What do think you'd have been like?"

She craned her head back slightly, combing through her brain for logical possibilities. How did the Chantry's reign shape who she was? She spent no time in a Circle, thank the Maker. All that really affected her was her family.

"If mages were free, mother wouldn't have been forced to leave Kirkwall and hide to be with my father," she mused, "My father would have taken my mother's name, Amell, and I would have been raised a noble." The thought almost made her shudder. Could she really have been some pampered, stuff-dressed princess only concerned with civilities and bloody politics?

"You would make the worst noble—ever," Anders grinned as if he read her mind. "Even now, you've already called the viscount a fool in person, beat a noble suitor to tears—when is the last time you even _looked_ at a noble without snarling?"

"They're just so _pompous_," she whined under Anders's scoff. "The nobles here, they turn their noses up at anyone who doesn't have their _very skin_ laced in gold!"

"Well, then, perhaps you'd be one of the nobles who can see sense. There are some, you know."

He was right, of course, but that life—as a noblewoman who didn't fight giant spiders in cramped caverns, or break fingers in dingy bars—just didn't seem right to her. Even if she'd been a high-born Amell, Agatha realized that she'd still be a trouble maker and that she was no less hopeless than Anders.

"Or, perhaps," she offered in all but a whisper, "I'd run off to join forces with a fellow trouble maker, healing the helpless and making puppies cry."

"Something tells me he'd like that very much." Anders closed the gap between them, placing a gentle, lasting kiss on her lips. After a moment's pause, his grin relaxed, and his eyes trailed down and to his left. "But there's a chance," he uttered, the humor sapped from his tone, "that his actions will make people fear him, hunt him." He turned to meet Agatha's eyes. "If that were the case, could you still be with him?"

Agatha tilted her head, and confoundedness etched into her features. With all the innocence she could muster, she looked Anders in the eye and said, "I was talking about the cat."

He tackled her, and she welcomed his advance with laughter. Agatha always found a tacit serenity in the warm darkness of her bedroom, tethered to Anders's side. She could wonder what in her life could be better or worse, but nights like this, walled off from the mortal realm and its debaucheries, safe in his tight embrace after a day of adventure are things she would never want to change.

A/N: Please read and review! I appreciate constructive criticism. I hope you enjoyed it, and let me know if you think Anders is in character; I despise OOCness.


	4. Trust

A/N: Sorry for taking forever and a half to update. This chapter kept trying to evade me XP. This came from Anders being a butt-munch to my pro-mage Hawke during the Justice quest in Act 3. I expanded on why he might have said some of the nonsense he said to her. Set after the quest, but before the finale.

P.S. Shout out to Musicalrain, my first and second reviewer ever! Thanks again! If you were a cookie, it'd be one of peanut butter and greatness :D

Trust

"You're too old to grouse about like this."

Agatha finally addressed the raging, red elephant in the room. Though she dreaded what would become of it, her heart pounded a tantrum in her chest; her blood stewed to a boil in her veins; they demanded action. She held like stone, eyes reluctantly fixated on the plaster before her as she sat at her journal desk, but she couldn't ignore the animosity that leapt in waves from behind her. Anders loomed, arms crossed, at the foot of their bed, seemingly incapable of readying for sleep.

"I just can't believe you'd do such a thing," he hissed. Those words had been either on his tongue or in his eyes for nearly the entire day, striking with venom.

"You can't believe I executed a murderer?" Agatha retorted with some sting of her own. "You've helped me to do it plenty of times before."

"Funny, and here I thought you actually had to _murder_ a person in order to be labeled a murderer—or have mages become the exception to even that standard?" the healer sneered.

Agatha whipped herself around to face him, restraint wearing thin. "Rendall was about to kill that girl, and you know it!"

"You could have stopped him!" Anders chided. "He was afraid, he was foolish, but that doesn't mean he was beyond reason!" Agatha bolted up from her seat to march toward her wardrobe and inwardly pinched herself for flinging the doors open so violently. "I didn't see fear in his eyes when he attacked Maurine," she griped, "nor did I see him hesitate to attack _me_ when I stepped in. You're crazy or stupid if you think I'd allow him to kill me just in case he 'saw reason.'"

When a wounded Rendall came to them one late night in Anders's clinic, Agatha believed she agreed to escort an innocent and unfortunate apostate to a safe place. For the most part, she was correct, but Rendall revealed a shadowed part of himself when a former neighbor of his stumbled upon them on their journey to the Wounded Coast. The young woman, Maurine, saw Rendall cast a spell. She wasn't his neighbor after that. No matter how Maurine pleaded or promised secrecy, Rendall saw only a threat in her: an inevitable traitor. He attacked Maurine. Agatha stopped him the only way she could, and she knew that she was right to, but that didn't mean she felt cold to it—to his undeserved curse of paranoia. It was all she could do.

But Anders's eyes sang a different song, entirely. They sang of the suspicion, the judgment, the fury writhing inside of him. This sizzling glare, somehow dimmer and brighter than that of Justice, sought her out far too often lately. Agatha got that look enough from Kirkwall's self-righteous; she didn't need it from Anders. She didn't deserve it from Anders.

"I would never have let him kill you, Hawke!" Agatha heard him take two steps toward her, and she went rigid. He was questioning her again: testing her _again_. "I'm not saying he was right to attack you, or Maurine. You know that! I'm saying that you could have at least given him a chance to come to sense before you ended his life!"

"It's done, Anders." She wasn't going to speak on it any longer. As if guilt and pity weren't already clawing at the back of her skull! Who was he to try and hold her accountable? Who was he to harass her grief? She wouldn't have even looked at Anders if not for the dagger that spurt from his tongue.

"And yet you claim a sympathy for your fellow apostates."

Her hands fell from the nightgown she was pulling from her closet, and the fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She felt a phantom of asperity swoop into her and pull her lips back into a scowl.

"I _have_ sympathy for other apostates," she snarled, stepping towards her opponent. "What I _don't_ have is a double standard for them. His being an apostate gave him no right to harm someone who was unarmed and begging for her life!"

Anders's nose twitched and curled to one side. "So, if a man makes one stupid mistake, you jump right into execution? That sounds a bit familiar, don't you think?"

Agatha froze, unable to notice the burning of her bulging eyes, unable to notice the crimson pooling beneath the dark chocolate of her cheeks and neck, unable to notice anything beyond this new vision of Anders: similar to the usual, but twisted and clouded by her own bottled rage. Agatha was baffled, livid. Had he really just compared her to a templar—to Meredith?

These were the times when their relationship frightened her, when the true dominion of the heart reaffirmed itself. Things were simple before: if someone bit her, she'd bite them twice as hard, but in Anders's presence, Agatha's heart bound her fangs. She wasn't the type to tolerate argument for long before she lashed out physically, but she could never strike Anders into submission or unconsciousness, lest her heart turn on her, and she couldn't ignore his hostility: her lupine nature saw it as threat. Once again, Agatha was rendered stagnant by the barb of Anders's insult: a new and crippling weapon.

"That's enough!" she scorned, palms trembling from the pressure of digging nails. "Ever since the day you blackmailed me into distracting the Grand Cleric, you've criticized my every move! If I am so much like you're templars, then why are you here?! What haven't I done to support the mages?!"

Anders replied only with an acid gaze; Agatha grew weary of matching it. She'd killed men for causing her less pain. How could she crave vengeance and not bare the thought of it at the same time? Slowly, for once, all her repugnance, her anxiety, her anger rinsed away in a flood of despondency.

"Why must I prove myself to you constantly?"

The color fade in her listless eyes goaded no words, no emancipation, no resolution from the beautiful liberator that shackled her so: only retreat, abandonment, as he dropped his gaze down and to the left.

"Forget it," she spat. She grabbed her robes and stormed from Hightown, determined to break from the astral inferno that was once her home.

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A soupy mist ghosted over the water's surface and clouded her reflection. Agatha couldn't help feeling that the Kirkwall night tried to mirror her own hazed mindset: her turbid thoughts. She'd nearly regretted fleeing to this place, but she realized that she didn't exactly have anywhere better to go. The docks were lonely tonight; the seas were solemn. Agatha's quiet, contemplative misery welcomed their company.

The mage felt her somber spirit sway with the sloshing of the water at her feet, the creaking of loose wood boards beneath her seat. She eyed the brass giants in the distance as they wept for the slaves of the past and the prisoners of the sore present. The Gallows seemed to taunt her with fresh memories of old sufferings whenever she crossed its scrutinizing gaze. She hated the Gallows; she found that almost all of her hatreds and violence stemmed from fear. The memory of Rendall scorched her still for that very reason. He moved too fast, and for the slightest second, instinct overshadowed compassion. She knew his pain. She punished him for acting on it, and she punished herself for not saving him from it. Justice will forever be served.

_'But he will never be satisfied'_ Agatha disdainfully reasoned. She remembered that sour blaze in those sweet eyes of his. Ander's eyes had their own miraculous way of unveiling all that churned within his soul. Each dart, each twinkle, each tear from them held something unique and heartbreaking. He could never mask the doubt or wariness that shot from those scarlet-brown globes at her even if he wanted to. Agatha's heart twisted in her chest. Had he even looked at his _enemies_ in that way? She hated to admit it, but she knew the answer. That blistering glower only stained his eyes on one other occasion.

She peered up at the Gallows again, like a soulless apparition hovering above the mist, and remembered why she feared them the most: because in between the mentions of darkspawn, Anders still whimpered of solitary confinement and vicious beatings in his sleep, and though she held him every time he cried out in cold sweat, she could not abolish his nightmare. It haunted him endlessly, hunted him endlessly, and if she wasn't vigilant, it could very well catch him. Agatha despised the Circle, but Anders lived it. She feared that it wanted him back, but she'd die seeing its wish not fulfilled. She'd die fighting its tyranny over all mages, and it seemed she'd die without the trust of the one who gave her struggle all of its meaning—without the trust she earned and yearned for. Agatha felt it whenever he glared at her as he did the poltergeists of his fading nightmares. Love was a beautiful, awful thing.

"I've found you."

She didn't dare respond. He had no right to go searching for her, no right to threaten her mordancy. She ignored him as he sat beside her; she ignored the reposing, herbal scent of his hair that carried in the wind; she ignored the bracing feel of his solid form next to hers; she ignored the simmering anger rising in her at the struggle to ignore everything.

"I want to apologize," he uttered, a familiar guilt dinning in his voice. "I was wrong to attack you like that . . . . and I know malice didn't motivate your decision—

"So sure all of a sudden?" Agatha snapped. "How do you know I'm not planning some elaborate scheme to feed all the mages in Kirkwall to some cannibal templars, or that I haven't sold my services to Meredith because I've discovered that supporting the mages in more that just word is too hard?"

"Because you need patience to accomplish any of that."

"Well, it certainly seemed fathomable before, didn't it?" She could her a sharp huff escape him in her pause. Her anger wouldn't falter, not this time, so long as she didn't look at him.

"It is total madness that I could gain the faith of the viscount before I gain the faith of the man who shares my bed. Never mind the fact that I go out of my way to—

"I'm afraid, Hawke."

A meek coarseness crept from his whisper, the same one that chiseled his voice when he had those cursed nightmares, and suddenly Agatha was ready for war. She gazed at him, to her left. His elbows rested on his knees in a slouch. A wince gripped at his face; a paleness bled through his skin.

"In the end, I must do what is necessary," he nearly pleaded. "I must fight to give mages a fighting chance—the opportunity to live the full lives that all men should have. There's no turning back now, but every great cause is realized with an even greater price." He shut his eyes for a pause, and then, stared into the mist curling around his ankles. "I'm terrified of this one."

Anders never spoke of his fears. He never spoke on his night terrors, or the shiver that rolled up his spine at the monotonous droning sound of a tranquilized voice. He never spoke on the itch in his staff hand at the sight of a templar, or his restlessness whenever he entered a cluttered, closed in area. Anders never spoke of his fears, but they revealed themselves in his eyes. They revealed themselves now.

"Do you still wait for me to abandon you?" she sighed. Anders didn't move to see her, but he did open his mouth.

"You are a _magnificent_ woman, Hawke," he muttered, and a slight grin cracked his mournful features. "For all of your efforts to seem hard and curt, you're still a hopeless softy—

"Says the possessed apostate who practically bursts into tears at the mention of the word 'kitten'."

"Let me finish," Anders's half sang. "You take up arms at the very _notion_ of an innocent being harmed." What little light warmed his face died with the fading of his faint smile. He looked to the Gallows. "The path I tread is painted in the blood of innocents, Hawke."

"As is mine," Agatha blurted. He insisted on seeing her as something delicate: some "shining light," and it infuriated her. She's killed and failed countless innocents; her family was now a testament to that. It hurt her, but it could never kill her as long as she never lost sight of her current purpose. Right now, her purpose set broken eyes on the horizon, waiting for her to abandon him; he failed to realize that he was all that pushed her to endure the pain that he so vainly tried to protect her from.

"Hawke, I—

"Listen to me," she hissed and gripped his shoulders. "I am with you, Anders. I can't say it any other way!" She gave him a slight shake as she pleaded and battled with the burn of threatening tears. "I may not know all of your fears, but I know I'm not here to be among them! I am here to face them at your side!"

He still hadn't looked at her. She bit down the exasperated urge to shake him dizzy. Agatha abhorred this: having to explain the most tender depths of her heart again, and again. It wasn't enough for her to disrobe physically. This feverish rebel demanded her to open every latch and lock on her entire being, and he forced her to want to. She knew that she didn't have to beg an understanding of anyone, and yet she lassoed her frustrations to the best of her ability, and she held his head in both hands. She made him face her.

"I am here so that you will have to fear nothing, but I can't _be here_ if you don't trust me," she whispered, slow and quivering.

Anders hitched her into his arms, his mouth that vied relentlessly to conquer hers. As her fingers fisted into his hair, as his warmth enraptured her mouth and the core of her flesh, Agatha felt her will dissipate into his frenzy. She knew that she didn't have to beg an understanding from anyone, but she would make him understand.

A/N: So, this one was a bit longer, and kinda different for me. As an amateur writer, I highly value . . . Scratch that-I NEED INPUT! Read and review, people! The order dictates! THE ORDER DICTATES!


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